Heartland

by Sarina Bowen

  His long fingers idly stroked her hair, and I wanted to stop and watch, fascinated. Their pose said to the world: We’re definitely having sex with each other. But not right now. First, coffee and homework!

  Nobody has ever touched me like that—with casual, sensual ownership. I have no idea how it feels to be half of a couple.

  There’s a squeak next door. It’s the sound of a window being cranked open. It’s a chilly night, so the open window probably means that they’re smoking a joint. Another thing I’ve never tried.

  Now I can hear their voices a little more clearly. Kaitlyn’s is the clearest. “Why do we always have to go back to your place?” she whines. “You could stay here for once.”

  “Three words,” Dylan’s lower voice says. “Queen-sized bed.”

  “That’s not really the reason,” Kaitlyn says.

  The next bit is muffled, so I find myself sliding out of bed and edging toward my own window. It’s already unlatched, so all I have to do is nudge the crank and it opens an inch.

  And almost immediately, I wish I hadn’t.

  “God forbid we’re overheard. Why do you fuss over her?” Kaitlyn asks, her voice high and angry.

  I sit down on the edge of my bed, my heart in my mouth.

  “She’s a good friend.”

  “You just want to watch her take off that low-cut top.”

  “Kaitlyn!” His raised voice is easy to hear now. “You’re ridiculous. Can a single puff of weed make a person paranoid?”

  “I see where your eyes go. Right down that slutty blouse.”

  They’re fighting about me, and I want to die. I clutch the V of skin above the first button on my PJs, as if I could undo the evening’s fashion blunder.

  That top was too revealing. Obviously. I wanted to be nonchalant and sexy. But I achieved slutty instead. Slutty and drunk.

  Except... It wasn’t Dylan who thought I looked slutty. He doesn’t notice me the way I want him to. It was Kaitlyn who noticed. And Kaitlyn who didn’t like it very much.

  Maybe I’m a mean drunk, because this idea makes me smile in the dark.

  Now Dylan’s voice goes low and soft. I can’t hear their words anymore. They’ve probably moved away from the window. I should get up and close mine, but my comforter is warm, and I’m lazy.

  I’ve almost drifted off when a sound from next door floats me back up to the surface of consciousness. It’s a keening moan.

  My eyes flip open in the dark. I listen. It takes a few seconds, but then I hear it again. “Ohhh.” Kaitlyn moans. “Yes.”

  I’m instantly, catastrophically awake.

  It all unfolds within earshot—the terrible, wonderful sounds of Dylan making love to someone who isn’t me. At first, I only hear her whimpering moans. They soften her, actually. Each mmm and ahhh is full of unselfconscious need.

  But then? I hear a low growl. The hairs on my arms stand up at the sound of Dylan’s voice. I can’t understand the words, but her response is a hot gasp. My heart begins to pound. I flatten myself onto the mattress, ears straining.

  He murmurs to her again, and the hungry timbre of his voice reverberates inside my ribcage. I’m holding my breath now.

  And then it really begins—the rhythmic sound of the bed rocking against the wall.

  I break out in a sweat. He grunts, and I shiver. Every little noise he makes is gold. I close my eyes, and I could almost be the one underneath him. My heartbeat syncs to his rhythm. Inside. Straining. More. Yes.

  “Please,” she moans. “Please.”

  Her begging is the soundtrack of my life. Please, Dylan. For once she and I are in perfect agreement. I clench my legs together against the ache. And then I do it again.

  I’m a sinner. I’ve always been a sinner.

  Pressing myself into the mattress, I spread my legs, and I imagine his body over me. His hot skin against mine. His tongue in my mouth. His low voice in my ear. My pulse pounds, and my ears strain, and I keep forgetting to breathe.

  “Grab the bed rail,” Dylan growls. “With both hands.”

  Then the wall practically begins to shake as the rhythm rises. It doesn’t stop until a rich, satisfied moan comes from the other room, chorused with my roommate’s.

  And now I know what he sounds like when he comes.

  I don’t move a muscle. If I got up to close the window, I might be overheard. If Dylan knew I was listening, I’d die of embarrassment.

  But nobody is thinking about me at all right now. I hear only the low murmured voices of lovers speaking to one another from very close range—the closest range there is.

  I lay still and try to think of other things. But I’m turned on and lonely, and the room is spinning gently.

  It takes a long time to fall asleep.

  Five

  Dylan

  “Hey, morning.” I plunk a tray down on the dining hall table and slide into the chair across from Chastity.

  “Morning,” she says, her voice a squeak. She glances up at me for a split second, looking mildly embarrassed.

  Ah. Must be the hangover. “How’s your head?”

  She blinks. “Oh. It hurts.”

  “Your stomach?”

  “It’s fine, I swear.”

  “Okay, you need coffee, carbs, and ibuprofen. Want to skip the algebra this morning?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “I can’t skip it. There’s a quiz coming up.”

  “All right.” I take a deep, life-giving gulp from my coffee cup. “Let me come over there, actually.” I can’t see her notebook from this side of the table, so I swing around and sit down on the bench beside her. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and give her a quick squeeze. “Is this your first hangover?”

  “I guess.” She sighs. “It’s really no big deal. I’m a big girl. A headache won’t kill me.”

  “Right. I know.” It’s just that I feel guilty. Rickie’s parties could make anyone regret her life choices. I should have warned her. “Tell you what. Do that first problem, okay? And I’ll ask the chef for my favorite hangover cure.”

  “The chef?” She gives me a quizzical look.

  “The cook. Whatever. That dude wearing the white hat. Just trust me on this.” I drop her shoulder and bolt out of my seat again.

  If you’re polite, people will do anything for you. When I return to Chastity ten minutes later, I’m carrying a chocolate mocha milkshake split into two portions and a plate of french fries.

  She looks startled when I set them down beside her. “That’s your medicine?”

  “Totally. But if you were nauseated, I’d start with popcorn and work my way up to fries. Here.” I push the plate a little closer to her then grab the salt shaker and sprinkle the fries vigorously.

  “Thanks. I didn’t know they served fries at this hour,” she says, grabbing one and dipping it in ketchup.

  “Sometimes you just gotta ask.”

  I watch her bite the fry and then smile at me. She picks up the cold shake and takes a sip. “Wow. You do know things.”

  “Right?” I like feeding Chastity. I always have, ever since the first Thursday Dinner she came to, when I heard her tell my mother that she’d never had a slice of pie. Not once.

  I’ve been feeding her treats ever since.

  Chastity eats a few more fries and picks up her pencil. She’s on problem number two. She sort of stares at the problem for a while and then abruptly writes the answer down. “Got it.”

  Oh man. She’s right, and she’s also wrong. “Chass, algebra is all about methodology and showing your work. If you turn it in like that, he’ll mark it wrong.”

  “That makes no sense. If the answer is four, then it’s four!”

  I chuckle then shake my head. “Look, I want you to think of each variable as a wrapped gift. You’re not supposed to just guess what’s inside. That’s not the point of algebra. You need to manipulate the other parts of the equation to show what’s inside.” I tap the page. “Try number three.”

  “But what
if it’s just obvious?” she argues. “I tried a couple of numbers, and only one of them works.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because soon the problems will have more than one variable, and there will be more than one thing that X can be.”

  “That sounds dreadful,” she grumbles, taking another sip of milkshake.

  “It’s only dreadful if you don’t learn the rules. Leave the gift in the box, okay? I’m going to show you how to manipulate the package so that all the other information tells you what’s inside.”

  “Okay,” she says wearily. “Thank you.”

  “Back to number three. How can you isolate X on one side of the equals sign?”

  She blinks down at the page. “Well…” Her cheeks turn pink, because this stuff doesn’t come easily to her. She missed ten years of math. My older sister and I helped her pass the GED tests. I already know she’s smart. But it hasn’t been easy. “I could add something to both sides.”

  “Right! What do you want to add?”

  “If only I knew.”

  It takes a while, but we plod along through the homework. I make her do every problem the long way, and slowly she pieces it together. And—hallelujah—she even does the hardest problem without any help.

  “Nice!” I say, holding up a hand.

  It takes her half a second to realize she’s supposed to high-five me, but then our palms make a satisfying sound as they meet in midair. And there’s that smile again. It warms me from the inside.

  There aren’t many people in my life who see the best in me, but Chastity has always been one of them. It relaxes me to spend time with her. And helping her with math problems is really no big deal.

  I sit back on the bench and drain my coffee. “Good work today.”

  “Thanks.” She unzips her backpack to put the textbook back inside. The spine is practically falling off. Chastity must be that book’s hundredth owner.

  “I have some packing tape at home you could use on that thing,” I point out. “I can’t believe the bookstore didn’t throw that copy away.”

  “Someone did,” she mutters. “I bought it off eBay for seven bucks. It’s a hundred bucks new.”

  “Ah.”

  “Hey, Dyl? I need to pick your brain about something. It’s a moneymaking idea with a twist.”

  “Yeah? I like money.”

  “So…” She licks her lips nervously, which is a little distracting, because Chastity is a really pretty girl, and I’m oversexed. But I snap out of it when she says, “You have all that goat’s milk in the freezer, and Leah hasn’t been able to use it for cheese.”

  “Tell me about it,” I grumble.

  My two goats—Jacquie and Jill—are a major point of contention at home. I bought them this past summer when Leah and Isaac—Chastity’s surrogate family—said they’d like to try making goat cheese. But when I accepted Rickie’s offer of a room in his house, the goats became my brother’s problem five days out of the week.

  Also, Leah hasn’t found a goat cheese recipe she likes well enough to put into production. So Jacquie and Jill are losing the family money and driving my brother crazy.

  “Would you consider another use for the milk?” Chastity asks me.

  “Any use will do.” I chuckle. “My mother made a big batch of goat’s milk soap, but that will last for months. Griffin mostly pours it on his cereal and blows up my phone complaining about milking Jacquie and Jill by hand. What’s your big idea?”

  “Well…” She clears her throat. “Goat’s milk makes really good caramel. And the only other ingredients are sugar and vanilla.”

  “Caramel,” I repeat slowly. “Like, candy?”

  “Exactly. And people buy a lot of treats during the holidays. I thought caramels would be a good seasonal product.”

  “Oh. Wow.” Who doesn’t like caramel, right? So this is a fun idea. Except for one problem. “Isn’t that hard to make? Have you done this before?”

  “Well, no.” Chastity bites her lip. “But it's just chemistry. Not that you should make a habit of taking chemistry lessons from your friend who never went to high school. But I watched a lot of cooking videos, and those people pulled it off.”

  “I thought candy was tricky. Don’t you need to bring it to exactly the right temperature?” I’ve never been known as a details man.

  “What if we tried to make a test batch?” she suggests. “It’s just three ingredients and a little patience. Although you probably don’t have time to noodle around in Leah’s creamery.”

  “Wait, the commercial kitchen? Doesn’t she charge money for that space?”

  “Usually,” Chastity admits. “But there are openings when she’s not making cheese and nobody else wants to rent it. She said we could use it on—” Chastity’s eyes dip. “—Friday nights.”

  Friday nights. Now that’s a problem. I usually drive home to the farm on Saturday morning, leaving the comfort of my bed before five a.m. so that I can help in the dairy barn by six thirty.

  Kaitlyn likes me to be around on Friday nights. She calls it “our night out.”

  On the other hand, I could always use more cash. And I need to get Griffin off my back. We used to get along better. But since I moved to Burlington, he won’t shut up about how much work the dairy takes.

  Fridays, though. I let everybody down eventually. It’s probably just Kaitlyn’s turn.

  I lift my coffee mug and drain it. “Interesting idea, Chass. Handmade candies are expensive. Like Leah’s cheeses, right? The retail price would be pretty high. And with all the gourmet crap our families are selling already, it wouldn’t be hard to get it into shops.”

  “Exactly.” She grabs a folder out of her backpack, but hesitates before handing it over. “Don’t laugh, but I wrote it all up for my Economics of Small Businesses class.”

  “I’m not going to laugh,” I insist as she hands me the folder. In fact, I’m damned impressed when I flip it open and scan the numbers.

  “Sugar is really cheap,” Chastity says. “That’s the second ingredient in caramel.”

  “See?” I have to chuckle. “You don’t hate math, as long as we’re making candy.”

  “I don’t hate numbers at all,” she argues. “I hate variables.”

  “Obviously. Because this is really thorough.” I scan her ingredients list, and the prices beside them. She’s right. Other than the goat’s milk, everything is dirt cheap. “Wow. Okay. So when do you want to try this? It’s already October. We’d have to hustle if we want to sell them for the holidays.”

  A big smile breaks across Chastity’s face. “Well, tomorrow is Friday. I could buy sugar and vanilla before Spanish class. We could make a test batch tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow.” I close the folder and hand it back to her. “All right. Why not? We’d have to leave right after classes. You can ride home with me, but you’ll have to stay until Sunday afternoon when I’m ready to drive back.”

  “That’s fine with me,” she says quickly.

  “Okay, it’s a deal. Fun project, Chass. I hope this works.”

  “It will,” she says, looking pleased with herself. Chastity’s eyes really sparkle when she’s happy. “I mean—this will be my first batch of caramel ever. But I have a good feeling.”

  “What if it won’t firm up?” I have to ask. “What if we make a whole vat of milky goo?”

  “Then we’ll freeze it and call it ice cream?”

  “Guess what? I thought about making goat’s milk ice cream. But you need big commercial freezers and those cost a lot more than a twenty-five pound bag of sugar.”

  “Then we better get it right on the caramels.” She zips her backpack.

  “Cool. I better run.” I get up and drop a kiss on the top of her head. Her hair smells like lemons. “See you tomorrow. Pick you up at four?”

  “I’ll be ready,” she says.

  I carry my tray off to the dishwashing window. And as I glance her way on my way out of the room, she makes an awkward motion with her hand.<
br />
  Strangely enough, it looks like a fist pump.

  Six

  Freshman Composition

  Section 4

  Title: Hungrily

  Author: Chastity Campbell

  I grew up on a cattle ranch. But I wasn’t allowed to eat a steak until I was a nineteen-year-old runaway, and two thousand miles from that place.

  Honestly, that’s really all you need to know to understand my story. But you wanted two pages, so I’ll give you the ugly details.

  Where I grew up women worked in the kitchen and the men never set foot in there. When dinner was over, my stepfather got up and left the table without a backward glance at his dirty plate.

  And if he ever left a scrap of something on it, one of his many children would grab it and shove it in his mouth in no time flat.

  One night every year, the menfolk (we actually used that word) who worked the ranch held a steak dinner to congratulate themselves on another auction of steers. I guess that sounds normal enough until I add that none of the wives were invited to this dinner. Or the daughters.

  But—as I mentioned above—the men of Paradise Ranch don’t do their own cooking. And why would they? My stepfather has five wives.

  On steak night they did their own outdoor grilling. (Because that’s somehow different? More manly.) But the daughters spent the day slicing potatoes and creaming spinach. And it was the daughters who carried in the steaming casseroles and the beans and the warm rolls with real butter. We set all these glorious foods on the long tables, where the men were seated with bowed heads.

  And then we stood back against the walls of the dining hall while our divine pastor said his lengthy prayer. It lasted five minutes at least. Maybe ten. That’s how long I stood with my back pressed to the wall, inhaling the scent of meat that I would never taste.

  When he was finally done with the windy men-only prayer, the men fell on all that delicious food like a pack of wolves. And I still wasn’t excused. It was my job to circle the table pouring water and refilling baskets of rolls.